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Show AN Interesting insight into the human side of America's economic eco-nomic progress and some of the widespread benefits it has brought are provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in data on the growth in the number of U.S. households and their changing composition over the years. Two developments stand out particularly from the figures concerning con-cerning household formation over the last two decades. The first Is the extent of the Increase In-crease in the number of people living alone. The rate of growth here has run far ahead of that of the total number of households and provide evidence of financial Independence In-dependence of an Increasing part of the population, many in their later years, thanks to the growth of savings and widening economic opportunity. The second Is the rapid shrinkage shrink-age in the number of farm households house-holds by contrast with the overall household growth trend. This is in keeping with the country's urbanization urban-ization and industrialization, and reflects changing technology in agricultural ag-ricultural production combined with the growth of ofl-the-farm jobs in business, industry and service occupations. Bureau of the Census figures show that there were 6.1 million one -person households In the Spring of last year, approximately one out of every eight of the 50.4 million households In the l'n!ted States at that time. Single-person households have increased by over 50 per cent since 1950, and have more than doubled In the 1940-58 period. No other household classification classi-fication comes close to this In rate of gain In the period, though some of the larger family groupings have been showing greater-than-average Increases In recent years. The total number of households Increased by 16 per cent between 1940 and 1958, and the rise In the 1940-58 period was 45 per cent. Single-person 'households, of course, are of varying ages; but the big rise in the ownership of life insurance and other savings over the last two decades combined com-bined with the spectacular growth in pension and retirement programs pro-grams has been enabling more and more older persons to maintain main-tain a home of their own, either alone or with others not related to them. In this connection, latest government figures indicate that at least three out of every fiva persons 65 years old and over are now drawing some kind of a retirement re-tirement benefit under a public or private plan. |